Saturday, October 18, 2008

Vintage Starlet of the Day

Leila Hyams. Leila appeared in many of the early talkies of the late 1920's and early 1930's. The movie theater by my house plays old movies quite often, so last night I was lucky enough to see "Freaks" and "Dracula" on the big screen. Leila Hyams stars in "Freaks", the 1932 film about a traveling circus and the scandals that take place within it. The film was actually banned for 30 years because it disturbed movie goers at the time. Anyhow, the beautiful Leila stars in this film which role was originally intended for Jean Harlow. Ultimately MGM decided not to cast any major stars in this movie. I thought Leila was great and would love to see more of her! Unfortunately only 4 of Leilas films have been released on dvd, which is quite sad when you find out she appeared in over 50 films! Apparently 48 of her films are still stored away and have never been released.

Interesting fact: Leila used to carry around a little satin bag attatched to her garter, which contained extra stockings in case the ones she was wearing got damaged:)

6 comments:

Ooohh, thank you for this post! I've been wanting to watch more films from the 1920s but past Clara Bow and Louise Brooks wasn't certain where to look. Now I have another actress to garner inspiration from.